A practical guide
How to work with different working styles
Working well with different working styles starts with the situation: what is causing friction, what each person needs, and what you can agree to do differently. Personality insights can help you ask better questions, but the most useful outcome is a concrete working agreement that both people can test.
One person wants to discuss an idea as soon as it appears. Another wants time to think before responding. One wants a detailed plan; another wants room to adapt. Neither preference tells you, on its own, who is doing good work.
The question for a manager is what the task needs and how the team can meet that need without making everyone work the same way.
What are working styles?
Working styles are the preferences and habits people bring to communication, planning, decisions, and collaboration. Some may relate to personality. Others reflect the role, the workload, previous experiences, or expectations that have never been made explicit.
Describe the difference in practical terms. “You prefer an agenda before a discussion” gives you something to work with. “You resist change” is a much larger claim and may be wrong.
How can the Big Five help at work?
The Big Five describes personality along five broad dimensions, rather than assigning a single type. The Berkeley Personality Lab describes these as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The Big Five Inventory 2 uses terms such as open-mindedness and negative emotionality.
These dimensions concern broad tendencies around new experiences, organization, social engagement, cooperation, and emotional responses. They do not tell you exactly how a person will behave in a particular meeting.
In practice, use a personality insight as a starting question: “Would it help to see the options before we discuss them?” Let the person tell you whether that interpretation fits. Do not turn a score into a capability judgment or a reason to exclude someone from a task.
Turn a difference into a working agreement
Start with one recurring point of friction. Describe the cost to the work, ask what each person needs, and try an agreement small enough to review after a week or two.
| Situation | Question to ask | Agreement to try |
|---|---|---|
| Some people think aloud; others want preparation time. | What would help you contribute before we make the decision? | Share the question in advance and allow written input before the meeting. |
| One person wants a fixed plan; another keeps exploring options. | Which decisions need to be settled now, and which can stay open? | Set a decision date and identify what can still change afterward. |
| Direct feedback feels abrupt to one person and clear to another. | How can we be specific while leaving room for your perspective? | Discuss one example privately, explain its impact, and invite a response. |
| Frequent check-ins help one person but interrupt another. | When do you need support, and when do you need uninterrupted time? | Agree on a regular check-in and a separate channel for urgent questions. |
These are examples of agreements, not predictions about personality scores. The same person may need a different approach on a new project.
Look beyond personality for the explanation
Imagine a teammate is quiet in planning meetings but contributes detailed suggestions afterward. It would be easy to assume they are disengaged or simply “the introvert.” Their one-on-one notes might tell a more useful story: the meeting often changes direction without a clear question to answer.
A performance review might recognize strong written analysis. A team pulse survey might suggest that decisions feel rushed. Together, those observations give you a practical experiment: send the decision and options beforehand, invite written comments, and make the final decision explicit.
Check this interpretation with the teammate. If the survey is anonymous, keep it as team context rather than attributing a response to them. Personality data adds a possible perspective; it does not establish the cause.
Use your AI to work through the specific situation
Common Cadence brings Big Five personality insights together with performance reviews, employee pulse surveys, and one-on-one notes in your own AI. The purpose is to help you connect those perspectives and get advice tailored to the working relationship and the situation in front of you.
Help me think through a collaboration issue. One teammate wants to discuss ideas live; another sends input afterward. Use the relevant feedback and personality context available to you, but do not assume personality caused the issue. Offer two possible explanations, questions to check each one, and a working agreement we could try for two weeks.
Give the AI only context you are allowed to share. Check its interpretation with the people involved, then judge the agreement by what changes in the work.
What if a working-style difference affects performance?
Adapt how you collaborate while keeping the required outcome clear. A preference for flexibility does not remove a deadline; a preference for detail does not mean every decision can wait. Explain the requirement, ask what support would help, and discuss the observable gap using specific feedback.
How do you know whether an agreement helped?
Choose an observable signal: fewer decisions reopened, clearer handovers, or input arriving before a deadline. Revisit it in a one-on-one. Ask both people what became easier and what still needs adjusting. Keep, change, or stop the agreement based on that conversation.